Paul Compton, MD

It is extremely difficult to try to describe group therapy, GT, to someone who has never been in it. Not unlike trying to describe the taste of chocolate to someone who has never eaten it. The best way to know about group is to be in one. The next best way would be to talk to a friend who has had a good group therapy experience. Of course everyone will have their own unique experience in GT and that experience will change depending on the group leader, the other members, and your own personality and stage of personal development.

Group psychotherapy is unlike any other group you have ever been in. GT is designed to bring people together in a way that allows them to experience powerful and intimate connections to each other. The safety of the therapy group enables members to be authentically present with others, to bring more of themselves into the room, and to give and receive honest and compassionate feedback. As a member’s comfort with revealing themselves grows in the group, so does it grow in their relationships outside of group. A group member’s comfort being themselves, feeling their feelings, and being able to talk about those feelings develops over time. Group members learn to identify and constructively express sadness and joy, anger and compassion, envy and sympathy and a host of other feelings in themselves and in others. Self esteem, and interpersonal relationships are repaired and enhanced and life consequently becomes more meaningful.

While GT is sometimes used in place of individual therapy, IT, more often it is used as an adjunct to IT. GT has the advantage over IT of allowing one member to learn from another which accelerates and deepens the work done in IT. GT allows for a member’s troubling issues to be re-experienced in the group which allows for real time opportunities to work through those issues.